Sugar Land, TX – Tom O’Driscoll has been running, biking and swimming his way to having the best possible endurance to enable him to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
He’s climbing with other living donors from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
O’Driscoll said he first decided to donate one of his kidneys in 2010 when he heard a story on the radio.
Soon after, he was in surgery in California giving to a total stranger. More than 10 years later, he’s also donated part of his liver.
“Being an organ donor does not in any way limit your health, your well-being or your level of fitness,” he said.
The disparity between who needs an organ and who can give is huge. There are 104,000 people on the transplant list, and last year there were just under 43,000 donors. That’s why O’Driscoll is ready to shout his story from the mountains. He’s hoping by telling his own story, it will spark something in someone else just like that radio report did for him years ago.
“[It] was a pebble in the river, and the ripples went out, and it touched me, it really touched me deeply, and I hope that our climb will be the same. Another pebble in the pond that the ripple will go out and touch somebody else,” O’Driscoll said.
His group plans to reach the highest peak of Kilimanjaro on March 9. That also happens to be World Kidney Day.